Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Malaysia Birding, Day 2 - Part 1, The Hills are Alive

It is not often that a verbose person like me to run out of words to describe what we saw and experienced on that shivery cold early morning at the parking lot of the Jelai Hotel which sits on top of a hill. So please just allow me to show you some of the birds we saw:At daybreak we were waiting for the action to begin:

We were joined a little later by more birders/photographers..but 'nuff said, here are the birds;First, the Verditer Flycatcher

Then came a pair of Little Pied Flycatchers

A White-throated Fantail

Everybody went ga-ga when the Sultan Tit showed up at close range!

As if that wasn't colorful enough, the Common Green Magpie popped into view

Of course, the iconic bird of Fraser's Hill, the Silver-eared Mesia, can never be ignored

Blue mood with a male Large Niltava

could the female be far behind?

A Grey-chinned Minivet added a flash of bright red-orange to the melange of colors

Rounding up the collection of Jelai birds was the very active Mountain Fulvetta

At half past eight avian activity died down somewhat. Only the usual Sibias and Laughingthrushes remained. We (four Chinese, three Thai, a lady from Hongkong, a Japanese couple, one really tall New Zealander, a Malaysian [Weefar], and two Fil-ams [me and Cynthia]) were all smiles as we slowly and reluctantly went down the hill to our respective hotels.While having breakfast at the Shazan Hotel, the Manager who was at another table signalled to us. "Barbet" he said softly. We looked at the feeders outside the restaurant and lo and behold, a Fire-tufted Barbet was having breakfast of its own. Let that be a teaser though because I will be posting its photo in my Day 3 blog.